Scottish Government to publish lockdown strategy for places facing high Covid-19 infection rates

Nicola Sturgeon clarified what would be published as a replacement for the routemap out of lockdown
A plan for areas with high rates of Covid-10 will be released by the Scottish GovernmentA plan for areas with high rates of Covid-10 will be released by the Scottish Government
A plan for areas with high rates of Covid-10 will be released by the Scottish Government

The Scottish Government will publish a plan for what could happen to areas facing high Covid-19 infection rates over the winter.

Nicola Sturgeon, speaking at her daily coronavirus briefing, said the document – labelled a “strategic approach to escalation in high infection areas” during her speech announcing new Covid-19 restrictions to Holyrood yesterday – will provide people with a clear indication of the measures the Scottish Government might take following an outbreak.

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The document is set to replace the existing route-map out of lockdown, published in the Spring, which detailed how Scotland would emerge from the full, national lockdown imposed six months ago.

The First Minister said the new document won’t answer every questions, but was designed to offer explanations as to why certain measures will be taken in some areas but not in others.

She said: “You’ll have heard me saying over the last few weeks why in some local outbreaks we’ve applied some measures which are different to other measures we’ve applied in other local outbreaks.

“What we’re trying to do is to bring that together in a more coherent, strategic approach that gives people a sense of what the different tiers of escalation might be if you’re dealing with different levels of the problem in different health boards or local authority areas.

“And also what the tiers of some of the escalation might be depending on whether it is a factory outbreak or a pub based cluster or more local community transmission.

"That is what we are seeking to do. It won’t answer every question but it will give people just a general sense of the kind of decisions that we make.

"One of the other things I have learned about this virus or tackling this virus is we’ve actually got very few levers to pull but we need to know which ones to use in which circumstances.

"I would remind people right now that we have rising transmission across the country and therefore we need to think of it in that nationwide sense as well as looking at particular hotspot areas when they arrive.”

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